


In Life and Death.

by ThePoetess



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Catching Fire, Death, Despair, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark - Freeform, Love, Mockingjay, Other, Team Gale, Team Peeta, Team Primrose, Team Rue, War, gale hawthorne - Freeform, katniss everdeen - Freeform, team katniss, the hunger games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-30 20:01:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10170728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePoetess/pseuds/ThePoetess
Summary: The Hunger Games are gone, lost to the past, but some wounds are slow to heal. Katniss Everdeen feels lost in the new world of her making. Then again, everybody does.





	1. Futility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss looks forward to the future, but ghosts still haunt.

There was a whispering in my hearth,  
A sigh of the coal,  
Grown wistful of a former earth  
It might recall. - Wilfred Owen 

Chapter I. Futility.

They hear mockingbird song in the forest and only hear song, I hear only screaming. Haymitch, Peeta, Gale, Effie, Annie Cresta, we haven't survived. I wake screaming and Peeta takes me in his arms and holds me tightly against him, whispering my name over and over again. Prim, Cinna, Finnick, Madge Undersee, Rye Mellark, Rue, their all dead and nothing I can do can change that, all of them were victims. All of them are dead. When I walk through the seam I can see Prim, she's everywhere, like Rue is in the Mockingbird's song. Prim's face haunts me. She's there when I wake and there when I look anxiously into the mirror, and when I do, she is smiling at me. Madge Undersee is there too. I don't look at her, the sad, charcoal smudged face of Madge Undersee, who has been dead and buried for three years now. Madge, my friend. The one who gave me the symbol of a rebellion. I hold the mockingjay pin in my left hand, pressing it into my palm till it hurts. I'm numb to the pain. At every corner in the Seam, Finnick seems to stand, leaning against the walls of new houses, and smiling his genuine smile at me. And so on. I can't explain it all. Peeta tentatively broaches the subject of children over dinner that night and I can't help choking on a cheese roll as he says it. It's clear he has been waiting a long time.

Years ago, before I took a first step towards rebellion, I remember telling Gale as we sat in the meadow, that I would never have kids. Now Peeta has broached the subject. I guess I am not the only one who is scared to start anew. Haymitch has been sober for the last two years and to me, who has known him for so long as the drunk mentor of my hunger games years, it doesn't seem to suit him. Most days he grumbles openly about it, tries to sneak a bit of whiskey or some other noxious drink at dinner, but Effie scolds him and keeps him sober. Yes, Effie is here too. Prim smiles from the mirror as I glare into it, my face is pinched and grey. I can't have kids, I can't, I don't want them, not now, and maybe not ever. Though Peeta's smile is infectious. I say nothing. The next day we get an unexpected visit from Maybele Snow. She's a small young woman with large grey eyes and Vick Hawthorne can't keep his eyes off her. She wears her rich hair in a single braid down her back, she's plain and I could never see our Vick, our precious talkative Vick ever liking her. His hate of her and her family is evident, yet his eyes still follow her with interest. "I came to ask for a favor," she whispers as her parents, a frail woman and a pale faced scowling man, watch disapprovingly. I don't speak. Why should she want a favour from me? Her grandfather ruined my life and now she comes to me and asks for my help!? I scowl deeply at her and her parents recoil. I give a comical low bow and when I stand up straight again I ask condescendingly "And what would the president's granddaughter want from me? A poor young woman from District twelve?" She merely shrugs "I only wanted to warn you." We sit down and I listen. What I hear sends shivers down my spine. The door opens, though I don't look over until a familiar voice says slowly "Hey Catnip." 

And just like that, Gale Hawthorne is back in my life. There is a uprising in District two against Panem's new president. I have started a fire I had thought had burned out years ago, but has grown larger over this expanse of time. I have started a wildfire that will destroy us all. The games are lost in the past, but the smouldering ruins of the capital have begun to rebuild. All we can do is wait and watch.

I watch Gale as he rests by the fire and stares with deep grey eyes into mine. Peeta sits awkwardly by my side, between us. "So," he finally speaks "How is Johanna?" Peeta asks quickly and Gale looks away from me and focuses on Peeta "Good," he says with a complex scowl on his handsome face that makes me match his look, he looks my way and says slowly "We have a child, two actually, Johanna and I."


	2. What Was.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Flashback Chapter starring Madge Undersee and Gale Hawthorne.

Gale Hawthorne had never been angrier. Madge Undersee had never been more nervous. Madge had blond hair, usually worn down, and was normally dressed in a drab school girl outfit; however, on the day of the reaping she had worn a white dress, with her hair tied back with a pink ribbon, and a mockingjay pin that would "keep a family in bread for months." Gale had remarked that it was a pretty dress, (Katniss was not sure if it was irony or a true compliment) and Madge had replied that she wanted to look good if she was going to the Capitol. Which had made Gale angry. He had never noticed that she was kind. Her appearance was much unlike those in the Seam, but as most in the wealthier end of District 12. She was skinny, but not bone skinny, since she had money to buy food. Gale Hawthorne was over six feet tall and similar to many people from the Seam, he had olive skin, straight black hair, and grey eyes. He rarely ever smiled. Madge had noticed all these things the first time they had met. He had been exceedingly rude as the day had gone on and they hadn't spoken since. Now they sat together on the hill outside the fence and didn't speak, just soaked in the silence. Slowly Madge reached over and let her fingers brush against his rough hand "Katniss will be okay you know." Gale said nothing, only stared scowling into her face.

"It'd be better if he were easier to hate." Gale tore into the sandwich Madge had brought for him "Peeta?" Gale scowled "Who else?" He grumbled. Madge stood "I have to get back before curfew. Oh and Gale, take a shower, your skin smells like apples, sometimes alder smoke and oranges." Her glowing smile was teasing and for the first time she saw him smile. "See you tomorrow, Madge?" Madge's heart seemed to swell with joy, but as she crawled through the fence and walked awhile until she reached her house her elation was smothered like a fire extinguished by water. Five peacekeepers stood in front of her house. She breathed a tiny breath in then out and made her way past with a few catcalls from the roudier peacekeepers on her left. One of them spoke through his helmet "Good afternoon miss Undersee, where have you been? Your father must be worried about you." The wicker basket was confiscated and investigated with the keen hope that they would find something deemed illegal by the Capital. If strawberries were illegal, Madge did not know, she didn't care much either. Let the peacekeepers have them, she couldn't, because she was allergic to them, though she had failed to tell the strawberry seller himself about that fact and had kept him selling to her. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes staring straight into Peacekeeper Thread's face (She wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of seeing her tremble) as he confiscated the strawberries for later. With withheld anger she snatched her wicker basket from him and walked as steadily as she could up the steps and into her house, where she kicked her shoes off and flopped very unladylike into the largest comfiest armchair available in the parlor. With tears fresh on her face she hoped for the Hawthorne's sake Gale would not be caught. All she could do was hope. Yet hope was not enough. Could it ever be enough? "I love you Madge Undersee, I love you." Gale Hawthorne laughed as he watched Madge Undersee traverse the top of the fence and crawl into the sheltering branches of a old elm tree. "You are just crazy enough to break Capital rules to come with me into the forest." Madge didn't look down, she wasn't afraid of a lot, but one thing she was afraid of was heights and her stomach knotted as she snuck a glance down at a beaming Gale. "You scared?" He called up at her teasingly. "No." She shivered. One heart wrenching crawl down the tree and a torn dress later Madge finally stood on solid ground. Her knees were a slight bit scratched and there were a few scrapes on her arms, but Madge Undersee didn't care. An impressed Gale Hawthorne gingerly picked the leaves out of her hair. "I'm impressed." Madge rewarded him with a little smile as she handed him the picnic basket. "Why don't you ever eat the strawberries when I'm with you? You like them a lot, I thought, am I wrong?" Madge blushed scarlet, cheeks burning, she played with the torn scrap of fabric on her skirt absentmindedly "I'm actually allergic to strawberries, I just told you I wasn't so that I could see you again." Gale was dumbfounded "Oh," "Yep," Madge busied herself with rubbing the dirt from her face, she only managed to spread it. "Here, let me." Gale leaned forward and licked his thumb, then he scrubbed it over Madge's dirty face until the dirt was gone, for a second he looked at her, then he pulled her in and met her lips with his. Madge was extremely surprised, it seemed Gale was too.


	3. What Could Have Been... Maybe... Nope... Never.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss and Gale talk after three years of being apart.

I watched the sadness in Gale's eyes as he looked into mine, equally sad. "Jo-hanna Mason? Children? You!?" Gale nods slowly "We have two girls. My son isn't hers though, my son, his name is Sparrow, his mother died when they bombed District twelve. She didn't make it." He looks into the fire as if he sees district twelve burning in its depth. Peeta looks sideways at me "Who was she?" He asks "His mother?" Gale gazes into the fire "Madge Undersee." My mouth falls open, Madge Undersee? Have I heard him correctly? I stare at him. "Madge Undersee? Gale?" He nods "We had a child right before district twelve was bombed, I wanted to name him for my father, but Madge picked the name Sparrow. My daughters with Johanna are named, Rue and well, Prim-rose." Prim! He can't possibly have just said that he had named his youngest daughter after my sister, Primrose, my dead sister, who had been killed by the very bomb Gale had been designing to use against the Capital! And the other, he couldn't possibly have named her Rue. Two days later they stand in my hallway. Rue and Primrose Hawthorne stare at me as we greet each other. Johanna shakes my hand awkwardly as the boy peaks from behind her, this must be Sparrow. He's dark haired with messy curls, at three years old he looks like Gale, but his eyes are his own, grey blue and deep, filled with understanding like Madge. His mother. The mother he never knew. My heart breaks for him as he hides his face in the fabric of Johanna's skirt. I can't believe I am looking at Gale Hawthorne's family. Primrose is a darling as is Rue, they take to sitting on my lap as their parents chatter. We don't talk about the old days. Those things are in the past, should stay there. I look at Gale, then I turn my gaze on Peeta. I smile. What Could Have Been... Maybe... Nope... Never. Gale and I could never be. What he had with Madge was lost in the past, taken from him by the Capital, in the fires of District Twelve. Sparrow is quieter, shy, kind, cautious, if not slightly suspicious, like Madge. It's both painful and sweet. I lean forward "So Gale, tell me about District Two." What I hear makes me angry once more. Panem has called the Mockingjay to act once again.


	4. Always.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Flashback with Madge and Gale.

"Gale?" They walked together past the Hob and towards the mines. "Urm?" Gale muttered as he walked along beside her "Katniss is going to be okay, I know you love her," Gale stopped in his tracks "How do you know?" Is all he could say. "I've seen how you look at her, I'm not blind to love. I know you have loved her for a long time." Madge was quiet and solitary in school like Katniss, which contributed to their friendship. However, she could be urgent, strong, and steadfast in her way of speech. She was also very cautious, if not slightly suspicious and wary of people she didn't know, becoming distant and closed if offended. Since Katniss had only talked to Madge a few times in the course of their acquaintance, she never thought of Madge as a "friend." Their relationship changed, though, when Madge visited Katniss in the Justice Building and gave her the mockingjay pin. Katniss describes her as quiet, kind, and brave. That was all to change. 


End file.
